


gold guns girls

by runobody2



Category: Gun Gale Online - Fandom, Sword Art Online
Genre: Domestic.....ish?, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 08:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16446542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runobody2/pseuds/runobody2
Summary: Four short scenes of Elsa and Karen, afterwards; featuring mediocre tea and mediocre decision-making.





	gold guns girls

**Author's Note:**

> I remember when we were gambling to win  
> Everybody else said better luck next time  
> I don't wanna bend, like the bad girls bend  
> I just wanna be your friend  
> Is it ever gonna be enough?

Karen will marvel later that they met for the first time twice, and both times under false pretenses: in a fantasy game and then in a dressing-room mirror, ciphers all of them.  As she’d approached she’d watched the turn of Elsa’s eyes in the glass, steady and as if bracing for a blow. Then on her way home she’d wondered how Elsa would have bared the teeth of her trap, some hurt and mocking victory, or never at all?  Perhaps she hadn’t yet thought that far ahead. Why else stay an execution?

A month later Elsa called Karen from a Hokkaido mansion after holding a private concert.  Karen laughed and said she wasn’t doing anything so exciting, and Elsa had hummed tunelessly.  But two hours later, there she was on Karen’s Tokyo doorstep, resembling less some washed up treasure than the jutting angles of lightning-struck sand.  Karen’s first thought is that Elsa must have conquered time and space and brought them to heel; her second is that she must have lied. “What are you doing here?” she says finally, flustered only as if by habit.

"Cruel!" Elsa says.  "And after all the trouble you went to see me in real life, I didn't think you'd tire of me so soon.  You really are a devil."

In the end it was nothing Karen had thought, only a private jet.

* * *

 

She lets Elsa in and goes to make her tea and feed her sweets, as if she were SHINC.  The difference is that with SHINC Karen can go into the kitchen and play the hostess alone for a little while, and they will chatter brightly to themselves, like a colorful flock.  Elsa will do no such thing. She perches on the kitchen counter, more cat than bird, watching. Karen remembers a time when she had wished to be a girl who could perch. Then, of course, she thinks of the game.  She thinks of Pito, as trapped by the unreality of GGO as Elsa is trapped by the reality of real life.

She pours them both cups of tea and reaches to open the cupboard to get a serving tray.  Elsa is still watching, as intent as in the heartbeat before a snipe. Suddenly Karen is very aware of the soles of her feet, rooted firmly in her tattered but comfortable old slippers, and those in turn rooted flat to her kitchen floor.  She’s never had to go on tip-toe to reach a plate.  When she'd first moved into her apartment for a little while she'd wished her cabinets were a bit higher, ridiculous as it was.

But before Karen can do anything, Elsa swipes a cup of tea from her hand and takes a sip, making a face when she burns her tongue.  The dying sun comes in through the window, alighting the wet inner edge of her bottom lip before becoming swallowed by the darkness leading down into her lovely throat.  Karen comes out of herself again in time to chide her.

“I’ve had better tea”, Elsa says carelessly.  “I’m not here for tea. Come on, I brought my amusphere.”

* * *

 

Later, LLENN looks up from slicing the throat of the last man to see Pito watching her.  "What?" she says.

"Do you still remember how it tasted when you killed me?  Was my blood sweet?"

"Player characters don't have a taste.  It’s not blood but light."

"I see then, you've forgotten.  I suppose I will have to remind you."  LLENN starts to say something, but Pito only smiles and turns away, eyes already on the next massacre.

* * *

 

When Karen pulls off the amusphere after tying up all her loose ends she finds Elsa already in the real world, the waking world.  They lay still on the floor of her bedroom, bruised as low-hanging fruit. It's dark now, and the fluorescent light of the street lamps comes in through the slats of her blinds and paints the topography of Elsa's back.

"Well?" says Elsa.  She takes Karen’s hand and slips it down the line of her jaw.  "Here's my neck. Do you remember now?"

"This is wrong,” Karen says.  “You were beneath me when I killed you."

"So I was," Elsa says, and rolls backwards, taking Karen with her.  Elsa’s feet end only a little past Karen’s knees. She is warm and pointy and small under her, and Karen feels very distinctly her pound for pound and flesh for flesh advantage.

And then the soft press of Karen’s mouth against Elsa’s throat, not at all like a girl who has killed.  They lie there together; two complicated forms. A topography no longer, unless it was a very strange one: instead, the light marks the banded cross sections of their bodies.  When Karen finally feels the pulse of Elsa’s heart beneath her mouth, it is not a rhythm but a recession.

**Author's Note:**

> am i *happy* i wrote sword art online fanfiction in tyool 2k18? no. did it happen? yes.
> 
> is this slightly better than writing rambling niche pseudo-meta posts about gun gale online on tumblr? who knows.
> 
> uhhhh thats all friends hope u enjoyed. comment/hmu on tumblr @ jade-ellsworth if u so desire. (will i impart the content of hypothetical pseudo-meta posts to you if you express even a little bit of interest? time will tell. (yes)).


End file.
